The Lamplighter
by Charles Dickens
'If you talk of Murphy and Francis Moore, gentlemen,said the
lamplighter who was in the chair, mean to say that neither of
'em ever had any more to do with the stars than Tom Grig had.'And what had HE to do with 'em?asked the lamplighter who
officiated as vice.
'Nothing at all,replied the other; 'just exactly nothing at all.'Do you mean to say you believe in Murphy, then?demanded
the lamplighter who had opened the discussion.
mean to say I believe in Tom Grig,replied the chairman.
'Whether I believe in Murphy, or not, is a matter between me and my
conscience; and whether Murphy believes in himself, or not, is a
matter between him and his conscience. Gentlemen, I drink your
healths.The lamplighter who did the company this honour, was seated in the
chimney-corner of a certain tavern, which has been, time out of
mind, the Lamplighters' House of Call. He sat in the midst of a
circle of lamplighters, and was the cacique, or chief of the tribe.
If any of our readers have had the good fortune to behold a
lamplighter's funeral, they will not be surprised to learn that
lamplighters are a strange and primitive people; that they rigidly
adhere to old ceremonies and customs which have been handed down
among them from father to son since the first public lamp was
lighted out of doors; that they intermarry, and betroth their
children in infancy; that they enter into no plots or conspiracies
(for who ever heard of a traitorous lamplighter?); that they commit
no crimes against the laws of their country (there being no
instance of a murderous or burglarious lamplighter); that they are,
in short, notwithstanding their apparently volatile and restless
character, a highly moral and reflective people: having among
themselves as many traditional observances as the Jews, and being,
as a body, if not as old as the hills, at least as old as the
streets. It is an article of their creed that the first faint
glimmering of true civilisation shone in the first street-light
maintained at the public expense. They trace their existence and
high position in the public esteem, in a direct line to the heathen
mythology; and hold that the history of Prometheus himself is but a
pleasant fable, whereof the true hero is a lamplighter.
'Gentlemen,said the lamplighter in the chair, drink your
healths.'And perhaps, Sir,said the vice, holding up his glass, and rising
a little way off his seat and sitting down again, in token that he
recognised and returned the compliment, 'perhaps you will add to
that condescension by telling us who Tom Grig was, and how he came
to be connected in your mind with Francis Moore, Physician.'Hear, hear, hear!cried the lamplighters generally.
'Tom Grig, gentlemen,said the chairman, 'was one of us; and it
happened to him, as it often happen to a public character in
our line, that he had his what-you-may-call-it cast.'His head?said the vice.
'No,replied the chairman, 'not his head.'His face, perhaps?said the vice. 'No, not his face.'His
legs?'No, not his legs.Nor yet his arms, nor his hands, nor
his feet, nor his chest, all of which were severally suggested.
'His nativity, perhaps?'That's it,said the chairman, awakening from his thoughtful
attitude at the suggestion. 'His nativity. That's what Tom had
cast, gentlemen.'In plaster?asked the vice.
rightly know how done,returned the chairman. 'But
I suppose it was.And there he stopped as if that were all he had to say; whereupon
there arose a murmur among the company, which at length resolved
itself into a request, conveyed through the vice, that he would go
on. This being exactly what the chairman wanted, he mused for a
little time, performed that agreeable ceremony which is popularly
termed wetting whistle, and went on thus:
'Tom Grig, gentlemen, was, as I have said, one of us; and I may go
further, and say he was an ornament to us, and such a one as only
the good old times of oil and cotton could have produced. Tom's
family, gentlemen, were all lamplighters.''Not the ladies, I hope?asked the vice.
'They had talent enough for it, Sir,rejoined the chairman, 'and
would have been, but for the prejudices of society. Let women have
their rights, Sir, and the females of Tom's family would have been
every one of 'em in office. But that emancipation hasn't come yet,
and hadn't then, and consequently they confined themselves to the
bosoms of their families, cooked the dinners, mended the clothes,
minded the children, comforted their husbands, and attended to the
house-keeping generally. It's a hard thing upon the women,
gentlemen, that they are limited to such a sphere of action as
this; very hard.
happen to know all about Tom, gentlemen, from the circumstance
of his uncle by his mother's side, having been my particular
friend. His (that's Tom's uncle's) fate was a melancholy one. Gas
was the death of him. When it was first talked of, he laughed. He
wasn't angry; he laughed at the credulity of human nature. "They
might as well talk," he says, "of laying on an everlasting
succession of glow-worms;" and then he laughed again, partly at his
joke, and partly at poor humanity.
'In course of time, however, the thing got ground, the experiment
was made, and they lighted up Pall Mall. Tom's uncle went to see
it. I've heard that he fell off his ladder fourteen times that
night, from weakness, and that he would certainly have gone on
falling till he killed himself, if his last tumble hadn't been into
a wheelbarrow which was going his way, and humanely took him home.
"I foresee in this," says Tom's uncle faintly, and taking to his
bed as he spoke - "I foresee in this," he says, "the breaking up of
our profession. There's no more going the rounds to trim by
daylight, no more dribbling down of the oil on the hats and bonnets
of ladies and gentlemen when one feels in spirits. Any low fellow
can light a gas-lamp. And all up." In this state of mind, he
petitioned the government for - I want a word again, gentlemen what do you call that which they give to people when found
out, at last, that they've never been of any use, and have been
paid too much for doing nothing?'Compensation?suggested the vice.
'That's it,said the chairman. 'Compensation. They didn't give
it him, though, and then he got very fond of his country all at
once, and went about saying that gas was a death-blow to his native
land, and that it was a plot of the radicals to ruin the country
and destroy the oil and cotton trade for ever, and that the whales
would go and kill themselves privately, out of sheer spite and
vexation at not being caught. At last he got right-down cracked;
called his tobacco-pipe a gas-pipe; thought his tears were lampoil; and went on with all manner of nonsense of that sort, till one
night he hung himself on a lamp-iron in Saint Martin's Lane, and
there was an end of HIM.
'Tom loved him, gentlemen, but he survived it. He shed a tear over
his grave, got very drunk, spoke a funeral oration that night in
the watch-house, and was fined five shillings for it, in the
morning. Some men are none the worse for this sort of thing. Tom
was one of 'em. He went that very afternoon on a new beat: as
clear in his head, and as free from fever as Father Mathew himself.
'Tom's new beat, gentlemen, was - I can't exactly say where, for
that he'd never tell; but I know it was in a quiet part of town,
where there were some queer old houses. I have always had it in my
head that it must have been somewhere near Canonbury Tower in
Islington, but that's a matter of opinion. Wherever it was, he
went upon it, with a bran-new ladder, a white hat, a brown holland
jacket and trousers, a blue neck-kerchief, and a sprig of fullblown double wall-flower in his button-hole. Tom was always
genteel in his appearance, and I have heard from the best judges,
that if he had left his ladder at home that afternoon, you might
have took him for a lord.
'He was always merry, was Tom, and such a singer, that if there was
any encouragement for native talent, he'd have been at the opera.
He was on his ladder, lighting his first lamp, and singing to
himself in a manner more easily to be conceived than described,
when he hears the clock strike five, and suddenly sees an old
gentleman with a ...
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